


And it somehow feels like fate

by StevetheIcecube



Category: No Fandom, Original Work
Genre: Cross-Posted on Wattpad, F/F, Fantasy, LGBTQ Female Character, Science Fiction, Science Fiction & Fantasy, transgender character
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-05
Updated: 2018-07-09
Packaged: 2019-06-05 21:25:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15179729
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StevetheIcecube/pseuds/StevetheIcecube
Summary: In a world constantly shaken by the trials of war and strife, Nephia never felt safe. Constantly spurned by everyone, she  landed herself in situation after situation and somehow ended up in an elite magic school in the prosperous capital of the richest empire in the world. Here she meets Safi, an unshakeable piece of perfection, someone Nephia can love despite hating everything she represents.Outside forces and the sheer weight of society, however, threaten to tear the two apart. While Safi only rises higher, Nephia falls in with Delphinus, who is battling against everything to do what he feels is right, yet Safi knows that fighting is the only thing that can pull herself and Nephia apart.





	1. Prologue I - Fate Fulfilled

"Is this the best you can manage?" Sparks flew as Nephia bore down upon her. Safi gritted her teeth. This was not the best she could manage, but dear Aria she couldn't bear the thought of doing any more. "All of this, all this time, and all you do is raise a shield? All those fancy words come to nothing under the force of my will."

"Dramatic as always," she said. She hated this. She hated every inch of the fury in Nephia's eyes. "You should know by now that words aren't the only thing in the world. But you should also know that you shouldn't disregard them and dissolve into...this." Nephia's hair had grown out, her clothes were torn, and the dark marks marring her skin were crawling with threatening certainty around her neck.

"You don't know what you're talking about," Nephia snapped, swinging her sword again. With barely a murmur, Safi managed to raise a barrier to deflect it. "You don't know how it feels! You're there with your precious Aria and the sponsorship of half the Compli in the world and you're looking down on me?"

Safi could barely speak, so all she managed was a short nod. This was tearing her in two. "How people view me compared to you shouldn't influence your methods. If I can do this through words, why do you have to do it through force?"

"Shut up!" Nephia slashed at her again, more anger behind her words, more power in her blade. "You don't know anything about me anymore. You don't know how I suffered without you. I doubt you even care."

"Nephi..." Of course she cared. How could she not care? Nephia was- there would never be a moment Safi didn't care about her. If she didn't care so much, she wouldn't be here trying so desperately to stop this. She needed to stop it before it was too late.

"You gave up your right to call me that long ago," she said. The dark marks were crawling up to her cheeks now, and Safi knew she had to end this. The image of having to resurrect Nephia, and whether she'd have enough power to do what was necessary afterwards...she didn't think she could do that.

"You will always be Nephi to me," she said firmly, closing her eyes and strengthening the shield around her. She could feel the harsh winds up here on the heights. She could feel the music rushing down below her, an endless stream. She focused her mind and began the cursed incantation she had never wanted to use. "And I am truly sorry for what I am about to do."

The winds picked up, and Safi regretted what she had done instantly, but it was too late to go back on it now. She had to finish the incantation. She desperately tried to focus on the familiar harmonic signature in front of her, getting her final feel for it. Within an instant, though, Nephia's signature unravelled into the mass surrounding her and the winds picked up until they swallowed Safi's voice entirely.


	2. Prologue II - A past long lost

"You're named after that one up there, you know." His mother pointed up to the sky above them. Delphinus had never been able to follow which one he was meant to be - he knew it was a constellation, but spotting the meaning behind abstract shapes didn't come to him easily. "It's a dolphin. They're incredibly intelligent, just like you."

She was smiling at him, her smile so warm even though out here on the top of the dunes at night it was cold. The sky stretched out above them, seemingly endless. She had always told him that they were pretty sure it was endless, because no one had ever been able to sense an end to it. People had spent years stretching out with their minds, trying to find where it ended, but they could never feel a barrier. No one had ever sensed what magic was like at the very edge of the sky.

"I have to go soon," she said. Delphinus nodded. She always had to go before the night had ended. He was fairly sure it was the same time every night, even, and no matter how he had tried in the past he could never make her stay. "I'll be back before dusk, I promise. Work hard, look after your father. I love you."

It was the same every night. His words swallowed by the cold and the regret of watching her leave, he just smiled at her, wrapped his arms around her waist, and then watched her go down to the village before she collected her things and rode out with the patrol, same as always. Every night.

Every night, he watched her ride out with the others, and every night he relived the feeling of watching her slip away one final time. Every night. Every night he saw her leave and it haunted him every single time. Knowing that he could have told her he loved her, just once. Saying that he would work hard. Saying that he would look after his father. Telling her he would do everything she asked of him every night, even if it was a lie.

That final night played over and over again in his head, in his dreams. Time passed and her face faded from view, leaving him doubting if he'd ever remembered it at all. As he grew, he found it strange to think that he had once only come up to her waist. In his dream, he grew, albeit slower than the version of himself he saw every day. His dreams alternately reimagined her as incredibly tall or with him dwarfing her (he probably didn't dwarf her, but at this point he couldn't be sure).

He didn't understand why the successive events were never immortalised by his dreams. He could remember those all the more vividly than the hazy reconstruction of the final night. He could easily recall every second of worry when his mother's party didn't return, when the soldiers marched over the desert, when everyone who stood against them was destroyed in an instant by a new fire they could not control or understand.

He remembered standing next to his father holding his hand before he was dragged away. They were content with killing every adult male in the village, even though his father had been confined to the house by illness for years. They didn't understand what compassion was, or what consideration was. They killed and they tore him away and replaced everything he knew with this.

They destroyed everything. All he was left with were a few belongings they could not prise from him for as long as they tried and the image of his final night with his mother, repeating in his head over and over. He dreamed that, one day, before dusk, she would return, but he knew she never would.

He was content to bide his time with the knowledge that she loved him and wait until the day that this suffering would be over. His faith in the powers that controlled the world were shattered forever, but he was willing to forgive them if they could one day rescue him from this forsaken existence.


	3. Fate I - Unexpected Choices

Nephia...honestly didn't know what to make of this situation. She didn't understand how everything she had done had ended in whatever this was even meant to be. It felt like someone was pulling a prank on her, for sure. Well, if it was a joke, it was a sick one. Because at this point, she was starting to get her hopes up.

It hadn't looked good, initially. She'd arrived in Fiunta on a plane only three weeks ago simply because she'd been in the vicinity of a plane and there was nothing for her in the place she had left. There was nothing for her anywhere, it felt like, but Fiunta had been different from the start. Wandering around with no money, it was clear that the people here were not expecting magical pickpockets. At all. Apparently magic being used for ill purposes didn't happen in Fiunta, which was fine with her. Made it a whole lot easier to make money.

The only problem was, it turned out, that when people aren't expecting magical muggings, said magic got noticed fairly quickly, and it barely took more than a few days for the police to decide that she was, apparently, incredibly dangerous. And then they started looking for her. Rather vigorously, and with guns. And then there were police cars, sometimes also with guns. They were not a fan of her at all, to say the least.

So, two weeks ago, she'd ended up in a locked hospital ward with two gunshot wounds. Severely regretting her life choices up until that point, seeing as she didn't think they were going to let her go anytime soon. She could have at least given herself up before they'd showed up and decided to shoot her. Then she wouldn't be in much pain at the same time as being arrested. Basically, life in Praevalens was not looking like it was going to end well for her. She'd been expecting deportation before she even recovered, honestly. That seemed like something conquerors of an entire continent would be inclined to do.

But instead...something completely different happened. After four days of sitting around in various states between and including drugged up and in intense pain, Nephia had a visitor. A girl. Or maybe she could be described as a woman. Either way, an incredibly attractive woman came to visit her and talk to her about her options for the future.

"Good afternoon," she'd said, almost waltzing into the room. She carried herself with a certain amount of grace and her dark hair clearly flowed behind her in a way that was almost definitely aided by magic. At the time, Nephia had been both dismissive and awed at the same time. This woman was clearly too rich and powerful for her own good, but she was also incredibly attractive. "My name is Safisneyartisa. I've come as a representative of the Board of the Aria Institute to discuss your future here in Praevalens."

"I'm perfectly aware that I'm going to be deported as soon as I'm recovered, if not earlier," she said, but she made a point of sitting up anyway. She didn't want to look lazy or too injured, even if she still hurt a whole ton. She didn't understand why the magic nurses hadn't managed to heal the wounds yet, honestly.

The woman shook her head. "That is the proposal, yes, but I'm here to discuss an alternative with you." There was something strange about the way this woman was looking at her. She just couldn't figure out what it was. "I'm from the Aria Institute. Do you know what that is?"

"Of course I do," she said. How could she, a magical criminal, not know about the international board legislating on magical practise? Everyone knew about it. "Just because I'm not from Praevalens doesn't mean I'm stupid."

Safisneyartisa looked vaguely surprised, but she shook her head again. "I know that," she said. "I just wasn't aware that you'd previously been living somewhere under the jurisdiction of the Aria Institute. My mistake, and I apologise. Regardless, there is a member of the Executive Board who wishes to sponsor you."

"Huh." That was the only way she could think to respond to something like that. That was...strange. She was a criminal, and sponsorships only really went to the people who showed promise and all that. All she did was discharge non-lethal amounts of electrical magic from her body, which was advised against by the institute anyway. "Are you sure, miss?"

The woman chuckled. "Yes, I'm sure," she said. "A member of the Board wants to fund your education. It is part of a research initiative to see what can be done for those who channel their magic through their body. It would involve your education and participation in several trials, and you would still be under restrictions due to the charges being pressed upon you, but-"

"You're saying that this is a better option than being deported?" She asked, cutting the woman off. "That's a pretty dubious offer. I'm not an idiot. I don't have all that education in fancy language, but research and trials? Sounds super suspect to me."

The woman sighed. "Please trust me when I say that anything you are being offered is likely far better than essentially being deported into a war zone. You say you don't have much of an education? Going to the Aria Institute's educational facility would change that, and I can assure you that living here, the centre of the world, is a far better option than going to the wastelands that are Terrascula during the conflict there."

Nephia wanted to point out that the only reason Terrascula was dangerous or a wasteland was because the Aria Institute hadn't intervened in the decade long conflict that had been raging there on and off, but she didn't think she was in the best position to do something like that. Accepting the offer was probably best for her safety and future, anyway. "I would like to have more information, if the offer is actually serious," she decided.

"It's serious," she confirmed. There was a definite smile on her face, and Nephia was definitely not influenced in her decision by how pretty the woman was. She honestly didn't want to say no to someone who seemed so pleasant and attractive. "I can arrange for some more information to be given to you by the end of the day. I feel I should take a moment to thank you for agreeing to consider the offer, incidentally. It's a really terrible shame when talented people get spurned from the best chances in life."

Nephia could only nod before the woman nodded her head to her and left the room. The only thing that pulled her out of her daydreams about how attractive the woman was came when she heard the sound of the key clicking in the lock again. Because even though she was being offered all this by a very pretty girl, she was still a prisoner here, and really she was just making a choice between two options she didn't want to take.

She'd received information on the school they were proposing she attend fairly quickly. Looking at it, she really wasn't convinced. It was clearly for children going in at a young age and staying there their whole lives, with the parent making the decision. There was lots of stuff about discipline that she really didn't buy into. After all of that she had made a decision not to get involved in all this, just to take her chances out in Terrascula, but then she was sent a note from the girl who had presented it all to her in the first place.

'Hello Nephia,' it read. Nephia only briefly wondered how the woman had got her name, seeing as she'd barely mentioned it even once to a staff member she'd apparently made the mistake of trusting. Unless they'd managed to trace her back to the flight she'd entered the country on, but that had been pretty illegal too, so she hoped not, for the sake of the person who'd helped with that. 'I'm sorry to bother you with my own opinions on your situation, but when I was with you before I didn't feel I could speak so freely about my own feelings.

'It may have come off as rude to you when I practically forced the option I preferred on you. In truth, I really cannot bear the thought of someone like you being sent into some place so forsaken by Aria as that (I feel I should also note that I am perfectly aware that the situation there is not caused solely by the Terrasculans). I have a not insignificant amount of magical power and the harmonic signature you leave in your wake is unlike any I have felt before - I am sure you are of a unique power and disposition.

'I do not wish to constrain you in any way, personally, but if you will permit me to influence your decision making process then I would be very grateful. I understand that you have reservations about what is being asked of you, but I can personally assure you that the Facility of Magical Enrichment is a worthwhile establishment to attend. I myself attend it at the moment and I would genuinely like to get to know you better in circumstances that don't involve multiple gunshot wounds. Regards, Safi.'

Somehow, reading that significantly changed Nephia's attitude to the whole issue. Maybe it had something to do with Safi being pretty, or signing off with a shortened version of her name, or just the plain old feeling of being wanted somewhere she had felt completely unwelcome, but staying here was now a lot more appealing than going out to Terrascula. Even if it went against all her principles about what she would tolerate, she knew it would be better for her to choose this. And even if that was a selfish choice, it wasn't like there was anyone around to judge her for it. Only herself.


	4. Struggle I - War

Delphinus squeezed his eyes shut. The bombardment only increased by the hour, it seemed, and there was only so much he could do to protect himself and the items here. Damn those people who had him so figured out that they knew he couldn't leave this place, even if they abandoned him to the full rage of whoever was invading this place.

There were books here. Old books. Some of the knowledge here might be truly precious, and of course those jailers knew that he would never leave these things to perish. Sometimes he wondered if he should just trick them all and leave this place, leaving the books and the precious words behind, leaving all of this behind. Sometimes, he thought he should. Sometimes it truly seemed like the best option, to do something like that. But he knew he wouldn't. Even if leaving this behind could secure him his freedom, he would not. Could not. If there was one thing he could hold on to through all this, if only he could just hold on to his principles, then he still had something that remained his own.

Honestly, he wasn't quite sure when this became his life. When the air raid sirens went off, they never bothered to let him out of this place. They bolted the doors shut and left him here with all the others, if there were others up here at this time. They didn't care about the people they had enslaved, nor did they care about the materials they were leaving here. The only use that paper had during a war was for fuel for fire, and in times like this they had plenty of fire.

The point was that they always left him here, in a warzone, to protect the trembling library and the slaves who varied from downtrodden to downright terrified. He wondered if they saw him the same way, through their dull and terrified eyes. He'd never spoken a word to any of them. He had no idea who they were or what they could do, and none of them had spoken to him much either. A few scattered words here and there, mostly thank yous or wasted introductions. He felt bad about it sometimes, but there was only so much he could do. There was only so much he could live through, and he didn't think he could bear losing these people in a war if he actually cared about them.

The bombardment had been getting worse recently. The last time it had managed to get this bad, the slavers had moved them all on. Walked them through masses of dead land, past lines of soldiers, even, and into trucks that carried him away from the previous place. At this point, that had happened several times. At this point, he was waiting for it to happen again until he died in one of these bombings, hit by a falling beam or bookcase as the building collapsed. He wondered if, when he died, his slavers would come back and laugh at him because he had never managed to get further than a library since he was snatched from his home. Then he realised that he didn't really care.

"I think we might die here," one of the people said. They were all huddled together in the slightly sheltered stone section of the room they were currently in. They were in one of the highest rooms, which was most dangerous, but they weren't allowed to leave. Everyone turned to face the man who had spoken. "What? There's no point staying silent. Those bastards can't hear us here. I don't want to die among strangers."

"I don't think we're just going to die here," a woman said. Delphinus recognised her as someone who had been here for a long while. Yet, still, he knew nothing about her except her face. "You'd be surprised at how tenacious people can be, I suppose. If the building gets knocked down we can just escape."

"I don't think there's any meaningful escape other than death, at least from a situation like this," the man said. He was gloomy. Delphinus didn't know whether he felt sad, empty, or scared. "I just don't really want this anymore."

"If you don't want it, surely you should try and find a way out of it?" Someone else asked. Delphinus was tempted to try and tune them out or to signal to them to stop being so loud. Even though it was illogical, he was afraid that it might attract some unnecessary reprisal from either the people invading or those keeping them here. Instead, he moved towards the window, trying to judge what was going on.

There were planes flying overhead. Lots and lots of planes. Normally they came at night, of course, but this time it was daytime and there were planes everywhere, dropping bombs everywhere. Every few moments, Delphinus saw an explosion. It was a miracle they hadn't been hit yet, honestly. Hurriedly, he waved his hands and beckoned someone over. He wanted to get down to a lower floor.

"Ah shit," the woman from before said. "We need to move. It's looking really bad out there. If we get hit up here, we're completely done for. Can anyone break down these stupid doors?"

Delphinus closed his eyes and touched a finger to the amulet still hanging loosely round his neck. In that moment he could feel the magic flowing everywhere around him and around all these people, and of course all the fire and noise outside only became more intense through the feeling of the energy that could be harnessed. But mostly what was important was the door.

The door was solid, but that didn't really mean anything. There was magic all around him, singing in an inharmonious concert he could barely sort through. If he could harness even a fraction of it and focus it for a moment, the door would be gone. The only problem was the books. He didn't want to leave the books to be bombed here, but honestly he doubted there was anything he could do at this point. The best he could do was remain here until everything was over and hope that everything turned out okay.

There was a bang, and he jumped along with everyone else. He hadn't expected it to be quite so loud, honestly. He didn't use his ability to channel magic very much, it just attracted all kinds of attention he really didn't want. "Who did that?" The first man asked. No one said a word, and Delphinus tried not to give any indication that it had been him. He couldn't tell if the words being spoken were angry or not, so it was safer to remain obscure. "No matter," he said with a shrug. "Thanks, whoever it was. That was handy. And we probably all owe you our lives."

Still, Delphinus said nothing, nor did he indicate that it was him. He just cast a reluctant look back at all these books that would probably be destroyed before snatching one off a desk and following the people through the new gap in the wall. They made their way down the stairs quickly, the whole building seeming to shake as they went just from the force of everything falling apart around them. Still, the building hadn't been hit.

As they descended, they encountered other rooms with other people locked inside, and some people who had been attempting to break out. In one room about halfway down the building, the door was charred and people were trapped behind a fire. That was a more difficult obstacle to deal with, especially with all the smoke that had been produced, but he just about managed it. The people down here didn't look like they would last much longer, though.

Once they had descended four floors, suddenly the whole area was deserted. Delphinus imagined that this was the part of the library that normal people normally went to. The building had clearly been in use, because everything had just been abandoned. There were books left open on tables, pens next to papers with sentences left in the middle. It was almost as if the people here had just vanished, instead of having fled.

"Where do we go from here?" Someone called. It wasn't someone Delphinus recognised. He had no hope of recognising all these people, anyway. There were more than he could reasonably take time to count, and most of them were coughing and shuffling around in more of a mass than as individuals. "I don't think there's any sense in leaving the building. We'll just get bombed out there."

The room they were currently in was vast, with a huge ceiling that stretched out far above them. It was made of stone, so Delphinus wasn't even sure of their safety down here. If that ceiling collapsed, they'd be more done for than they were just one floor up, logically. Practically, he didn't know how it worked at all. "Well we can't stay," a woman replied. "Think what those scumbags will do if they come back and see us all clustered like this." At her words, fear seemed to ripple through the group.

Delphinus moved towards an older woman who was doubled over, coughing weakly. He didn't know what to do, seeing her so injured. It must have been the smoke a few floors up, seeing as she was covered in soot. In that moment, he hated even more than before that his entire life had been spent being shunted around in the name of doing something to his mind. He didn't even understand what he was doing here, but right now all it meant was that he'd been unable to take up studies in healing with his magic.

The woman stopped coughing, looking up at him with desperate but still dull blue eyes. Oh, if any powers really did control the world, he just wished they could give him the power to do something now. Anything. He reached into the magic surrounding everything in the room and tried to think about what was going on there, if there was anything he could do. The signal around this woman was weak, weaker than anything he had encountered except perhaps a chance meeting while travelling with someone even closer to death than this. He tried to reach around him, to find a way to strengthen her signal, to do something, but no matter what he tried he couldn't reach her. There was almost something blocking the magic from getting to her own signal to help her, but he couldn't work out what it was. While he was focusing, she fell forwards into him, and he had to clumsily arrange his arms around her to hold her up. He didn't know what to do.

The sensation snapped him out of the deep focus he had found himself delving into, a deep, useless focus, and he suddenly felt the presence of a huge number of people outside the building. The people inside here didn't seem to be aware of it, and he didn't know how to explain to them what he could sense.

He felt stuck. There was the woman in his arms whose magic signal was getting weaker with every passing moment, and then there were the people outside who had a lot of signals flying around them and it wasn't entirely magic. He couldn't do anything to improve this situation, so why was he even here?

The woman stopped breathing. Everything fell silent. The bombing and sounds of explosions cut off, as if in response to the end of her life, and he didn't know what to do. It was like, just for a moment, everything had frozen. Even the sounds of the people in the library, still arguing about what should be done next, seemed to fade into the background compared to the rush of silence and blood in his ears.

She'd closed her eyes from the coughing and pain but she still looked so pained. He couldn't bear it. She was just lying there, against him, and she wasn't breathing anymore. He didn't know what to do. He couldn't just set her down, he couldn't give up on her, but he knew there was nothing he'd been able to do anyway and she was dead by now and-

The banging resumed. The people who had started to crowd around outside of the door were now trying to get in and Delphinus was terrified. Someone in their group screamed, and people started bolting for the stairs, for anywhere they could do that might hide them from the people trying to get in.

Delphinus blinked, realising in that moment that he was crying. He was afraid, but he couldn't move and let the body of this woman clatter to the floor. And she was dead and he couldn't touch a dead body to move her to a better position but she was gone and- he couldn't move from this spot unless he did something. And the people who had been all around him were gone, their signals scattered all across the building. This building was huge, he'd always known that, but sensing it was different to seeing it and all of that intimidated him as well. He didn't understand what was going on when the door kept banging, the sounds kept cracking, the signals of energy that wasn't magic getting stronger and stronger, almost overwhelming all his sensations. He was afraid.


	5. Fate II - War's Wake

"It's a good job you didn't choose to take the offer of going to Terrascula," Safi said, coming into the room unannounced like always. Nephia sighed, placing the bookmark between the pages of the book and setting it down on the desk. She allowed herself to lean back in the chair in the study room, unashamedly watching Safi as the light streaming through the window played off her dark hair, catching the few strands of lighter colours.

"What happened today, then?" She asked. Safi sat down in the other chair, pulling it closer to where Nephia was sitting. "More bombings? Chemical weapons? Those hardy soldiers from the Aria Institute being sent off to kill civilians again?" Safi wrinkled her nose in slight disgust (Safi didn't tend to express things that were more than slight, however, so that indicated that she probably wasn't all that pleased either).

"You should probably stop saying things like that," she said, but her tone was still light. Nephia clearly hadn't pushed too many buttons yet, then. "I don't want them to find some justification to take you away, you know."

"I know," she said, offering up a smile which Safi gladly returned. "Go on, tell me the news from the war in Terrascula. I do genuinely want to hear it."

"The capital fell just now," she said. Nephia blinked. That was an interesting idea to think about.

"Just now?" She asked. Safi nodded. Huh. That was strange, to say the least. All the peace here, in this room. No one here was suffering. If she looked out of the window, she would probably see the people of Fiunta going about their normal, happy, prosperous lives, or perhaps even celebrating the victory. Actually, she didn't know if they celebrated wars. Most of them thought themselves above seeing the war in Terrascula as a battle to be won; it was more an inevitable path to victory and they'd just been waiting a while for it.

"They stormed the governing district and the central buildings only a few minutes ago," she said. How was her voice always so even, unaffected even by this? It was making Nephia angry just thinking about all the people who had probably died in this last wave of bombing and assault. Had the Terrasculans even done anything wrong?

"Did they kill everyone inside or something?" She asked, not bothering to disguise the edge in her tone. Safi already knew she didn't agree with the war. To her, it just looked like they'd been attacked because they had the misfortune of not wanting to register all their magical activity and they were next to the borders of Pravalens' more recent conquest.

Safi shook her head. "Because of the bombings, the governors and the royal family had retreated to a bomb shelter elsewhere. They're still trying to find them, but it's quite likely they'll escape to some other country. Probably Harfeld."

"The next target?" She asked. Aria, she hated the endless wars Praevalens engaged in just because they thought they were superior.

"Probably not target," Safi said. "Please try not to bother yourself about it, Nephi. It's not really any of our concern, and it's not like we can do anything about it."

"I'll press it as much as I like," she said, but she ended her statement by sticking out her tongue to try and lessen the harsh tone of her statement. Safi offered a weak smile in return. "Go on Safi, you know I don't understand diplomacy like you do. Could you just tell me why they're not a target?"

"They're not a military target," she explained with a sigh. "They're a colony of Terrascula. The Terrasculans aren't popular there. I imagine no military presence will be needed, just a little coaxing in the direction of giving the leaders up for proper trial."

"Makes sense," Nephia said. She was still putting the pieces together with all this theoretical stuff about history and social policy and all of that (or was this one international relations? All the subjects got mixed up in her head, even after six months of being here), but she was pretty sure that all of this just resulted in more problems. If Harfeld didn't like being occupied and then Praevalens marched in, surely that would only lead to more problems down the line?

"It does, in theory," she said. "Practicalities are always more difficult. Did I tell you what reports on the war were like before it began? Projections and all of that stated that we wouldn't have too much of an issue, and there would be no civilian casualties on either side. Yet here we sit at the end of the war with significant civilian casualties on their side and a long war behind us."

"It would be easy to get disillusioned," Nephia said. She was straying into dangerous territory, she knew, because of course this wasn't really an academic facility, was it? It was just for controlling people. Yet now she had the opportunity to stop and study things and get a handle on how the Fiunta elite viewed the world, she just kept questioning things. "Why don't people hate the neverending conflict, do you think?"

"They do hate it," Safi said. She reached across the gap and caught Nephia's left hand in her right. "But they see it as necessary. People are sad about war and suffering, but they think it's better than the alternatives. You're, ah, not at a level where I'm allowed to talk about details or anything, but once the trials of the Terrasculan leaders begin you'll understand what the alternative is."

"I still don't think it's right," Nephia said with a frown. "I also don't get why you still have to hide things from me. I know I'm still a prisoner and all, but surely you can say? They won't get rid of you off the Youth Board. They love you."

Safi smiled, but she looked sad as she did so. "That they do, but it's not that you're a prisoner, it's that you're a civilian. Civilians aren't meant to know all the gruesome details; it's so it can't be leaked to the press and then to the Terrasculan leaders, who, once they know that we know the full picture, might take things to another level to avoid prosecution in Aria courts."

"My point still stands," Nephia said, pulling a face. "It's not like I can leak stuff to the press. I'm not allowed to leave the grounds and I don't have access to the communication lines." Safi pulled a face back at her and stroked her fingers over her knuckles, gently. Why did she have to be so tender when Nephia was annoyed?

"I don't want to risk my position," she said, an element of firmness to her tone. "I can't afford to give up all of this. I want to have a strong standing later in life so I can protect people when a certain idiot girlfriend gets herself into trouble, after all." Her face moved into a slightly teasing smile, and Nephia's annoyance faded away.

"Of course," she said, returning the words with a grin. She understood why, it was just so infuriating sometimes. It wasn't fair that she didn't get to understand all of these things, but it wasn't really Safi's fault that she couldn't. "Sorry for needling you so much."

"Don't worry about it," she said. "Maybe one day all of...this will be easier for the both of us." Honestly? Nephia couldn't see that happening. Safi would remain in her high position, always separated from her through knowledge, and she would never be able to break that silence because they both needed to guarantee their safety. It was an impossible position, basically, and the only thing that was likely to change was that they would both get older.

Unless, of course, Nephia took it all into her own hands. She could organise people to break through all the lies and deception. She could fight against all these elites who thought they had the right to control the world. There were plenty of people who probably couldn't be happy with the current state of affairs. But she couldn't do that to Safi. She knew Safi would never leave her top position, would never make a stand against the state. Whether it was the right thing to do or just the smart thing to do, Nephia knew Safi wouldn't err from the orthodox and she could see the sense in that. She just didn't know how long she could spend supporting it, especially if she couldn't get a more equal future out of it.

It took no more than a week and a half for the trials of the Terrasculan leaders to begin. It turns out that Harfeld were more than willing to betray their previous colonisers, and the war had been wrapped up very quickly from there. As far as Nephia knew, raids and bombings were going on still, but they were toned down compared to where they had been before, which was decidedly a relief. All she could think about were the civilians who were struggling.

Safi had the trials playing on the radio, on the TV, basically anywhere she could see or hear. International law was her field of particular interest and she was also keen for Nephia to understand; that much she could tell. It was a little annoying, but it led to a greater understanding on her part.

It took a few days for the trials to heat up. They started with standard things that everyone knew already, probably because they were preparing the rest of their evidence based on things they had discovered during the invasion. There was also the difficulty of finding defence lawyers for the leaders, seeing as there were no international lawyers willing to defend them, especially as, as far as Nephia could tell, they were refusing to plead guilty to the charges.

Early evidence and charges were all things she knew already. Refusal to cooperate with Aria Institute laws on internationally registering those with magic was the obvious one, and was stated as the casus belli for the war in the first place. There were also charges of unlawfully rigging elections, using force against civilians, all kinds of things that violated laws that Terrascula probably hadn't ever wanted to subscribe to. Nephia wasn't excusing them or anything, but she had felt the need to point out to Safi that the whole thing had probably been forced on them anyway, so was it even fair to charge them for it?

A few days in, however, and the items Safi had been referring to when she said Nephi would understand why the people of Praevalens didn't mind the ongoing war started to emerge. "Charges of war crimes?" She asked, looking slightly disbelievingly at Safi. Safi just nodded, not even shifting under her gaze.

"War crimes," she said. "They'll go into it more as the day goes on, I promise. But I can tell you now, it's not good." And it really wasn't good. They'd been gassing and shooting civilians if they were suspected of being dissidents, recruiting children into the military, killing non-combatants in their wars against foreign, non-technologically advanced nations, and then enslaving people as spoils of war.

It was bad. It was awful, and it made Nephia understand why people didn't mind the war. Stopping all of that from happening further was, without a doubt, a good thing. But was it worth the cost? Were they saving more lives than they had ended during the war? Would the lives of the people in Terrascula actually improve, or would they just keep getting worse?

"So what are the measures to help them?" She asked Safi. Safi always knew about these kinds of things. "I mean, the victims of all of this. And the war in general. What are Praevalens doing, or is it more of an Aria thing?"

"I don't know," she admitted. "I haven't heard anything. Normally, if they're doing a relief effort, they ask me to do some fundraising, or at least to put in a token word in that direction. But they haven't asked this time."

"That means they're not doing anything, right?" She asked, letting out a sigh. She'd seen the photos of the devastated area. She knew that there must be a lack of housing, food, clean water, and because of the war, she doubted that much aid was getting in right now. "Someone should be doing something."

"That means you want me to do something," Safi said, a knowing frown on her face. She didn't like to ask the Aria Institute to do things in case they said they didn't want to, and then her standing suffered. But at the moment, there was a bit more at stake than the reputation of one person. "You know, you could pitch it to someone yourself, like Lady Furentaetia."

"They wouldn't listen to me," she said. "They have no reason to. I'm a criminal, and it's not like I'm showing the potential they wanted me to." She wasn't wondrously smart or gifted like most of the people here. She was plain and ordinary and had too many prying questions.

"They weren't expecting anything world-changing," Safi said, snatching Nephia's hands up. "They were expecting that magical conduction of yours to destabilize at a moment's notice, and it never has. I promise you, I bet they're really impressed."

"I don't get any indication of that," she said with a shrug. "But I guess I could try asking about it. How would I make a proposal and stuff?" Safi's smile could have lit a dying star at that point, and that mattered rather a lot in that moment. But what mattered more to Nephia was the prospect of helping those people, who were stranded in an impossible situation just like she had been not even nine months before.

**Author's Note:**

> Any feedback you may have is very much appreciated :)


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